Identity Element by
Chris Dee

Negotiating
Price

Bruce was just headed into
the costume vault when I got home.I
hid in the shadows, just for a few seconds until he’d gone inside to
change.I felt like if he saw me,
he’d probably stay in costume, he does that when he’s thinking as Batman.But I didn’t want to have this conversation with “Batman,” if you
know what I mean.I didn’t even
want to have it in the cave if I could avoid it but, well, it doesn’t matter,
we can’t always have what we want.

After a minute, he came out, minus the cape, cowl and gloves, but still in costume and still very much in
Bat-mode, took one look at me and grunted.An old grunt, the kind he used to make at Tiffany’s or some museum.

“I thought I heard
something,” he growled, still looking me up and down like I might have a loot
bag or something.

“I didn’t hear a
thing,” I told him.

“It’s the bats, they go
quiet when someone is out here.”

“Can’t pull one over on
the great detective,” I admitted.I’d
taken a step closer—I wasn’t even aware I was doing it.Something about that look of his, the grunt, the tone, it was all so much
like the old days.It brought out
the old instincts; it made me flirty.I’d
walked up to him and started playing with the insignia out of habit.He let it go on a lot longer than he used to; he didn’t take my wrists
or push me away.Finally, I just
wound down, stopped fussing around the bat-emblem and looked up at him.I realized it didn’t really matter if he had the mask on or not, at
this distance he was just… eyes.

He hesitated and then put his
arms around my waist.I could tell
he knew.He’s Batman.
Finding out things is second nature to him.He’d probably heard the same stories I had, or something similar, about
Dr. Light and come to the same conclusion.But I asked anyway.

“Rough night?”

He nodded.

“Me too,” I said, “But
I have a solution…”I felt him
stiffen, and I knew right then it was hopeless.I’d lost before I even said a word—Just this once, Dark Knight,
let me leave with the diamond sparkly.Where’s
the harm?After all I did capturing Penguin for you, leaving him neatly
trussed up at the Bat-Signal, you couldn’t look the other way just this once?

“No, no, no! Selina, I
won’t have it.It only compounds
the problem—adding magic on top of magic. I never wanted or needed magical
protection before and I am NOT starting now.I don’t like it, I don’t trust it, and I will. not. use it.”

“This magic shit is like
nuclear weapons, Bruce. You may not like that they’re out there at all, but if
they have theirs, then we have to have ours.”

“Forty years of Cold War
taught us the futility and idiocy of that logic.”

“I knew you were going to
be this way.Damnit, why won’t
you let me protect you?Is it
the tiger-bodyguard thing?I went
along with everything else, Bruce, I stayed in the cave, I went to the fortress.That went against my principles, but I made an exception for
special circumstances.So
what’s it going to take to get you on board with this?”

“Selina, listen to me.This isn’t protection; it’s an overreaction that’s not going to matter in
the end.Protection from Zatanna
is pointless.”

“After what she did, it’s
pointless?!How can you say
that?! Bruce, are we even living on the same planet here!”

He paused, his face hardening
even more, if that were possible. “Because it’s not going to be Zatanna next
time,” he said.

There was an undercurrent I
couldn’t figure out.I could tell
he was hurt, I could tell he was angry, I could tell he had blood flowing to it
a hundred different ways, but what “it” was exactly, I couldn’t figure out.Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

“Ockham’s Razor,” he was
saying, “Remove the extraneous: the real problem is not the magic or the
magician, it’s the betrayal. Next time it won’t be her, it’ll be someone or
something else. Then what? More protection compounded for another magic-user?It won’t end: once you cross that line, it will just keep escalating. The only real way to protect me or anyone else from the next time is to make
sure there is no ‘next time.’”

I asked, with as much
controlled poise as I could muster (which admittedly wasn’t much), how in the
raging bloody hell he expected to “make sure there is no next time” without
shoving it down their goddamn star-spangled throats that they COULD NOT ever do
it again, that they would NEVER
in a thousand lifetimes be in a position where they could FUCK WITH HIM EVERAGAIN?

He looked at me—actually,
it was more like he was looking through me—and then turned on his heel and
left.

Bruce knocked once at the
door to Alfred’s room before twisting the knob, entering and closing the door
behind him.He hadn’t waited for
any acknowledgement or permission to enter; he didn’t want to risk Selina
seeing him if she’d followed from the cave.

“Is there a problem,
sir?” Alfred asked, concerned, as he reached for his dressing gown.

“Not an emergency, Alfred,
but yes, there is definitely a… I just had the most unnerving moment
with Selina.There’s
definitely a problem, old friend, yes.”

Alfred noted silently that
Bruce was still partially in costume, and also that he was unnaturally pale.

“Sit down, sir,” he
suggested, pointing to the chair.“It
seems you’ve had an alarming shock of some kind?”

“Remember Dick’s idea
about Wayne Manor being cursed?I’m
almost starting to wonder if there’s something in it, not the manor, but
me…”He related briefly what
was known—and what was suspected—about Dr. Light and the mindwipe, but
before Alfred could answer with more than a murmured “My word,” Bruce waved
him off that topic entirely.“It’s
typical,” he grunted.“I’m
not happy about what happened, but I can’t say I’m surprised.The fact that they had to wipe MY mind because I would stop
them only goes to prove that they knew they were in the wrong and they had to
cover their asses.They did it the
only way they could, using their powers.”

Alfred wondered if it was
really that simple.After so many
years, so many confidences, he knew there were times Bruce merely described what
he knew to be so, and there were times he spoke a thought out loud to convince
himself.This could well be
the latter, and normally Alfred would press to find out… But there was
something more at work—something deeper—Bruce had left the cave in the
middle of the night, only half changed from his costume. There was more to the
League story, certainly, but Alfred sensed there was something…else going on.

“It’s… disgustingly
typical, but that’s not the issue right now.Alfred, it’s Selina, her reaction to this, what I saw in her just now,
it was…”

“It was what, sir?”

“It was me,”
Bruce whispered the last word.

“Master Bruce—”

“Remember when I said I was
going to train Dick as a crimefighter, do you remember that fight we had over
it?How I saw—it wasn’t just
that he’d lost his parents, it was the pain and anger, the fire in his eyes,
his voice, that burning need to fix it somehow…Alfred, I never wanted to see anything like that in her, not in Selina.She’s supposed to be this little corner of the world that’s life and
joy, not obsession and ‘this is wrong; we have to do
something.’”

“Master Bruce, Miss Selina
may be greatly distressed by the news of the day.I don’t doubt that her reaction is impassioned and, perhaps, not
lacking the kind of resolve and determination you yourself have been known to
exhibit in matters of import.But
I cannot believe, sir, that the woman you know is materially changed by these
events.I am certain that, in time,
that ‘life and joy’ you spoke of will assert itself again and—”

“So help me, Alfred, if
they snuffed that out of her, I’ll—”

Both men were interrupted by
a knock at the door.

“Alfred, are you awake?”
Selina’s voice called.

Bruce massaged his brow and
ran fingers through his hair as Alfred said, “Come right in, miss.”

She did.She was wearing his kimono again.She
looked right at him as if she had guessed he was in the room.

“You left this
downstairs,” she said simply, running her fingers over the fabric.“Figured I’d bring it up.I’ll
sleep in my suite tonight if you want some space.”

“You don’t have to do
that,” Bruce answered as she turned to leave.

“What do you want then?”
she asked over her shoulder.

Bruce said nothing for a long
moment, and Alfred flicked imaginary dust off his nightstand.

“That’s what I
thought,” Selina murmured.

“Go on to bed,” Bruce
said finally, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Alfred coughed.“Begging your pardon, miss,” he said before she could leave, “Might
one ask what it is that you want?”

Selina thought for a
minute… then the faintest hint of a naughty grin tugged at the side of her
lip.“I want Zatanna to wake up
tomorrow to find a rabbit’s head in her bed.”

The idea was that we’d
sleep on it.When Bruce
came to bed, we agreed that we both needed some time; we’d sleep on it and
talk in the morning.It was
maybe twenty minutes later I heard “You’re awake?”

“Yes.”

“Selina, I do understand
what you’re feeling.I’m
prepared to take steps so it won’t happen again.I won’t have those steps include magic in my body, in my world, or in
my life.It’s that simple.”

That was it for another
fifteen minutes or so.Then
it was my turn…

“Still awake?”

“Yes, Kitten?”

I crawled across the bed and
curled tight against him, resting my head on his chest.

“What would you do?” I
whispered.

“Make sure the League never
resorts to such tactics again or even considers it, and punish the guilty.”

“Well that certainly sounds
like you, but—”

“But you wanted to know
specifics.”

“I don’t know what I
want.I want to know you’re
safe.”

“And you think Jason Blood
can deliver that better than I can. Because he’ll use magic.”

“Because he goes on day
after day, year after year, decade after decade, holding in Etrigan when there
is nothing in it for him but more grief, and he does it, despite all that
cynicism and distance from humanity that I guess just goes with being immortal,
because it’s right—a concept he won’t even admit he cares about, a concept he
will claim he loses sight of more and more each year.And yet if you look at what he does and not what he says—in stark contrast to those ‘hero’ friends of yours—he’s up there with you
for complete and total dedication of his whole life to this one purpose that
makes the world better for everybody else but him.And on top of all that, he could roast Zatanna on a spit over a flame of
actual hellfire without even setting down his teacup.So yeah, I figure he’s the guy for this one.”

I know I got a little carried
away. I’d sat up in the bed and was scrunching up the sheet by the time I was
finished.

“I guess I could use some
space then,” Bruce said dully.It
felt like the whole world tipped away under me.“You stay here, I’ll go across the hall—”Any second now, I was going to slide down into a vacuum and all this shit
in the room was going to come tumbling in on top of me.

“Bruce, wait, please don’t
do this.” It was my voice talking, but it sounded a lot calmer than I was.“You asked how I felt.”

“And you told me.”

“It’s not like I had him do
anything.I just went to find out
what might be possible.It’s just
an option.”

“An option you want to go
ahead with.”Batman’s voice.Vault voice.I’ll
never have anything to do with you because you’re a thief voice.None of this could really be happening, could it?

“After what they’ve done,
I don’t know how you can feel safe without it.”

“I’m sleeping across the
hall tonight.”

“WHY?Why are you pulling away from me when I only wanted to—”

“BECAUSE
YOU DON’T TRUST ME!I said I will
handle this.I will.Either you accept that or—”

“Or you need space and go
across the hall, I get it.”

“Well?”

“Bruce… You won’t even
tell me what you’re planning.It’s
a lot to take on faith.”

“In other words, that’s
your price.I have to convince you.If I don’t have something better, to your mind, than Jason Blood can
provide, you’ll go right ahead, behind my back, and have him inflict magical
protections on me without my knowing—”

“NO!Bruce, how can you even think—”

“—because YOU decide
that’s best!”

“I would never do that.How can you even think I would do something like that… to you… Bruce,
Jesus Christ, how can you even…”

“…”

That undercurrent was back,
just like in the cave earlier.Hurting,
angry, blood flowing into it a hundred different ways.It’s not the magic or the magician, it’s the betrayal…
It’s not—

Shit.

“It’s
not Gotham.Whatever happened
it’s connected to the League somehow, not the rogues.”

“How
do you figure that?”

“Because
Superman knows.”

Shit.

“Oh.Oh, I see.You trusted Clark.And Clark screwed you.And I
get the bill.Is that it?”

“Selina, I—”

“This morning it was
‘we.’”

“…”

“This morning we were in
this together.”

“…”

“Will across the hall be
sufficient distance, or would you feel safer if I left the premises entirely?”

“I don’t want you to
go.”

“Well, I don’t want to go
either, Bruce, so what are we talking about?”

“Let’s just… give it
some time.Trust me.Trust
when I say I will handle it.Let
that be enough.Okay?Tomorrow, I’ll call Clark.This begins with full disclosure.By
10 a.m. tomorrow morning, I’ll know what he knows, and then I’ll know how to
proceed.”

I said nothing.This morning, it was “we.”

Neither of us went across the
hall.We curled together and
lay there in silence until dawn.I’m
not sure how much he slept.I’m
not sure how much I slept either.Eventually,
a yellow-white glow appeared above the curtains.I got out of bed and opened them.It
was morning.

“Now there’s a good
omen,” I purred.

Outside the window, perched
upside-down at the very top of the screen, was a small brownish bat.

Bruce came to the window and
glared at it.

“He’s kind of cute,
backlit like that,” I noted.“I
never realized how thin the wings are, look at that. You can see the bones, you
can even see where the bulk of the body starts.”

A lecture followed.Bruce declared this specimen a “Bumblebee bat,” the smallest variety,
with a wingspan of about six inches, weighing less than a penny.The wings were essentially long fingers covered by that nearly
transparent skin.He pointed out
the elbow and clawed thumb, and then I stretched up and kissed him.

“What was that for?”

“Just being you,” I told
him.

Superman arrived, punctually,
at 8:15.I was in the cave with
Bruce, waiting. He showed me the alert that indicated Kryptonian entry into
Wayne Manor’s airspace, and I went upstairs to admit our guest.

“Alfred is out shopping,”
I mentioned as I escorted him down to the cave.It was a lie, which Bruce said he would know since he would hear five
heartbeats in the house, three human and two feline.It was to be the first subtle hint that matters had changed.

We made smalltalk as we
walked.I told him I’d called his mother to thank her for the
cornbread and fritters she sent when Lois and I were holed up at the Fortress.I told him it was his father that answered the phone and that we’d had
a nice chat.I told him that
repulsive writer who insisted I started out as a prostitute was finally gone
from the Gotham Post.I told him the forecast called for rain.And then we reached Workstation 1 and I handed him over to Bruce, for
what I was sure was going to be a conversation the Iceberg crowd would call
“some quality dinner theatre.”

I retreated to the Trophy
Room, a spot Alfred had recommended as sufficiently out of sight and out of
earshot, yet close enough to reach the main cavern in an instant if the situation
required it.That moment came after
about ten minutes.

I could see why Alfred
favored this location.The
acoustics of the Batcave were complicated; I knew that from my attempts to sneak
up on Bruce at his workstation.But
Alfred has had so many years to study them, he’s found tricks none of us can
ever match.From this one spot, I couldn’t make out what was being said,
but I could hear the burr of voices in conversation, the highs and lows, the
general timbre and mood of the conversation.I couldn’t help but smile at this little insight into Alfred’s
“magic”: from here he gave Bruce and whatever guest was in the
cave their privacy, but he could make an appearance in case of a lull—or
break the focus if the situation went wrong.

They only raised their voices
once, about five minutes in, words leapt out from the muffled hum.First Superman’s: “It wasn’t my place to tell anybody anything!”
and then Bruce’s: “But it’s your place to eavesdrop? And if you hear
something this potentially damaging to your precious League, don’t you think you
have a responsibility to tell someone?!” Then Superman: “I’m not sure I need
to be taking lessons in responsibility from—”“From what, Clark, from an ordinary human being that can’t even fly?How dare flesh and blood presume to judge the behavior of a god?”

It got quiet then.

No, not quiet—silent.The voices stopped… …and didn’t start up again… …close
to a full minute passed… … in complete silence.

Then, finally, the calmer,
more rational, but unintelligible hum of conversation.

It was about five minutes
later that Bruce called out, not very loudly, “Selina, a moment.”

And in three steps I was
there, clearly standing by.I
said nothing, and Bruce merely made eye contact and left without a word.Superman looked at me, and I smiled sweetly.

“It’s like he’s more
pissed at me than anybody else,” he murmured.

He wasn’t talking to me.It was just one of those inner thoughts that leak out the mouth.I continued to smile, while envisioning what he might look like dodging
Etrigan’s fireballs.

He noticed and I could see
his wheels turning –smiling, not responding– –smiling, not responding–
It wasn’t what he expected from me.After a minute of awkward silence, he started talking again, mostly to
himself, it seemed to me.

“I mean, if I’d been
there, it never would have happened.But
I only learned about it after the fact.By
then, it was too late. By then, it was another issue entirely.Something like this could tear the League apart, probably for good.”

Bruce returned and I left,
again, for the Trophy Room.After
another few minutes, Superman’s voice became audible again:“Are you pissed because the League did this or are you pissed because
the League did it to you?!” but this time Bruce’s reply was a low
gravel.I couldn’t make out the
words but I recognized the cadence.Superman
was definitely getting an adapted version of:burglary is a crime in this city even if you do look hot in purple
leather.

After another minute of that,
Bruce called me back in.I nodded,
and again he left without a word.Superman
watched him go, glanced at me for a moment, peered back in the direction that
Bruce had left, and then looked straight ahead—not looking at me or anything in
particular, just staring off into space.

“I get it, he doesn’t want
me down here alone, right?” he muttered, slight disgust creeping into his
voice.

“Got it on the first
try,” I observed.“And they say
you guys with the powers aren’t very bright.”

He tried for the upright
hero’s look of disdain towards the lowly criminal’s taunt—a conceit
I’ve always enjoyed popping even when it isn’t a total sham.

“I really don’t think you
get to do the righteous crimefighter bit,” I whispered conspiratorially. “Not down here, not today.”

“No, I suppose not,” he
said frankly, looking me in the eye.“Selina, listen. They did what they did to keep him from interfering. Was it the right thing to do? No. Would I have done the same thing? Certainly
not. Was I pleased to find out about it? Hardly. But I was looking at the bigger
picture. Telling him about it after the fact would have only started a cycle:
they wiped his mind to keep him quiet, but I told him, so now they’ve got to
think about wiping us both—which leads to a full League vs. League
fight. Back then, the Secret Society, Lex Luthor and Grodd, had a real chance at
taking over the world.The Justice
League was our last best hope to—”

“Don’t you dare quote
Lincoln,” I interrupted.

Superman paused and took a
breath. “Despite what you might think, this wasn’t an easy decision to make. I
struggled long and hard over this. It wasn’t an easy choice, but ultimately
the good of the many had to come first.Selina,
there are things that are bigger than Batman.”

I smiled.

He looked confused at my
reaction—the expression that no doubt led to the theories about his not
being very bright.We just won.He didn’t know it.

“Bigger than Batman,” I
mused.“That’s an argument you don’t want to use again.Look, I’m not here for the conversation, I don’t care about your
reason or theirs.But I’m telling
you, don’t use that argument again.”

His expression morphed from
confusion to slight indignation. He was no doubt wondering who the hell I was to
be making a declaration like that. I smiled all the sweeter.

“Did I mention I had a nice
chat with your father this morning?”

He nodded.

“I told him about the fall
of that miserable little Post writer that said I was a whore.It reminded me of this great story Tom Blake would tell around the
Iceberg whenever a new issue hit the stands, just to try and ruffle my fur:This guy at a dinner party asks a socialite if she’ll
sleep with him for a million dollars.She
says yes.Then he asks if she’ll
sleep with him for ten and she’s insulted.She:Certainly not, what do
you think I am?He:We have already established what you are, now we’re negotiating
price.”

Superman is not, in fact, a
stupid man.He realized by then
what he’d stepped in, and, to his credit, he let me continue without trying to
cut me off.Maybe that shot Bruce
took about an ordinary human being daring to spank a god hit a nerve.Good.

“‘Bigger than
Batman’ is not the same as ‘more important than.’ Abraham Lincoln did what
he knew was right, even though it prolonged a war and cost lives, and he risked
‘the last best hope for earth’ to do it.And you stand there pretending right and wrong is a numbers game and use
Lincoln’s words to justify it? Look, I DON’T DO THIS SHIT!I
shimmy through Cartier’s vents
left-left-down-right-squiggle-001004873-jewels-that-don’t-belong-to-me! I can’t stomach the priggish little lectures about right and
wrong, law and justice, crime and punishment.Not.My.Thing.But this!Your—for
lack of a better word—reasoning on this is so exquisitely fucked that SOMEBODY has
to step up and SAY SO!Sometimes
the good of the one does outweigh the many because of the principle
involved—otherwise, you’re just negotiating price.And here’s the kicker, Spitcurl, I think a man raised
by the couple I spoke to this morning knows that.”

Throughout the whole thing,
Superman had this strange mixture of haughty superhero and whipped puppy dog on
his face. But now his eyes shot up and locked onto mine. Given my own current
state of mind I couldn’t be sure, but I swear I saw his eyes glowing red for an
instant. Then, just as suddenly, his face relaxed into a determined stare and he
spoke in a calm, frank voice.

“You know, your indignation
would carry a lot more weight with me if it weren’t coming from someone who once
kidnapped my wife. I’ll take the heat from Bruce. I deserve that. But you? Well,
you said it yourself: You. Don’t. Do this.”

I figured that was coming.Parents are a hot button with anybody that doesn’t sprout from spores.There was a weapon—at least, what his kind would consider a weapon—in the fact that Catwoman was a criminal.That
made him superior, in his opinion, and, oh look, push him just that much,
and, yep, he’ll reach for that particular club.It was as inevitable as what Bruce knew was inevitable:push them just enough and they’ll reach for those other options that make
them “superior.”I was
about to say so when—

“She does have a point.”

It was the first time in a
long time that Bruce’s voice actually startled me. I didn’t realize that he’d
come back. Superman looked over at him as he returned.

“Yes. She does.” He
turned to look directly at me again.“If
you want me to say it was a mistake to keep this quiet, I’ll allow that it
might have been.If you want me to
say I would do it all differently today, I don’t know that I can.I understand your position:a
League that has to be preserved in this way might not be worth saving.I can never feel that way.My
mission is to protect the billions of innocent people on this planet the same
way that Batman protects Gotham. If maintaining my ability to do that, to
protect those I care about means having to sacrifice a—”

“Sold, one superman.”

“You and Bruce really are
perfect for each other,” he said grimly.“You should think about getting married.”

“Kiss my ass,” I
answered, just as grim.

Bruce made it back to where
we were standing, looked at me and nodded toward the Trophy Room. Like before, I
turned to leave, but Superman interrupted, an annoyed edge to his voice.

“She can stay.”

Both Bruce and I spun on him. He was in absolutely NO position to be making demands and I sure as hell wasn’t
about to “stay”—that might work with your little Kryptonian
hyper-mutt, but not me, Flyboy.

“If the both of you are
going to be taking pot-shots at me, at least have the common courtesy to do it
at the same time. Let’s give the tag-team theatrics a rest.”

Typical.How completely typical of the hero-addled intellect to think this was
some sort of prearranged good cop-bad cop thing.If he couldn’t see that Bruce honestly needed to step away in the
course of a conversation like this and get some air… Honest to god, I think
we’d be better off starting with smart people and teaching them to fly.

I looked to Bruce for an
opinion, and he grunted.

There really wasn’t much
more to be said anyway.I gathered
that he already told Bruce what he’d overheard at the Watchtower:the vote was split about ‘altering’ Dr. Light:Green Arrow, Black Canary and the earlier Green Lantern voting against,
Hawkman, Zatanna, and Atom in favor, with the old Flash being the deciding yea.

The vote to wipe Batman’s
mind was unanimous.

That was the point where
Bruce had excused himself from the cave when Superman told him the first time.This time, his face just hardened into this dull grimace and his eyes
radiated a pulsing fiery hate.I’d
seen that look once before, second Hell Month, searching for Nightwing.The Beast.

“Of course,” Psychobat
rumbled softly.“Those who voted
against the first time were most aware it was wrong.They had to cover themselves.”

I felt Superman’s eyes on
me, so I looked up at him with a calmly pleasant half-smile.Yes, Spitcurl, I’ve seen him like this before and I can handle it
just fine, what’s your problem?

He went on a verbal ramble
about how that incarnation of the League never truly recovered, that it was the
beginning of the end of that group, that the division lines drawn that night
never truly faded, etc.It was,
quite honestly, a pretty disturbing picture.All Bruce had done was turn on a little Psychobat and one of the most
powerful beings in the universe loses it.

“…Some of those involved
still haven’t fully accepted what happened that night, the League itself was
already in disarray—and the effects of that night are still being felt today. I’m not even sure if some of the reaction to Sue’s death wasn’t a continuation
of that old argument…”

This, I gather, is what
happened “that night” as well.
According to what Superman overheard, in the cabal’s own words, “You think
you’ve seen him mad… you’ve never seen him mad, not like this” and they (again
in their own words) “panicked.”

Pussies.

Superbeings?I’ve seen him that mad.Harvey
has fought him that mad.So
has Eddie and Oswald and Tom Blake and Hugo Strange.The absolute joke figures of Gotham have all endured really pissed
Psychobat and lived to tell the tale.Earth’s
mightiest heroes can’t go thirty seconds without hitting the panic button.

“…The point being, I was
trying to keep the League from completely crumbling—sometimes with my bare
hands—and part of the decision was based on not wanting to add a hostile,
unknown variable into an already volatile situation…”

Yes, he called Bruce a
hostile, unknown variable—to his face.I’ll do stuff like that, but I know how to do it. I
can pull it off—it’s one of my special powers, it goes with the
naughty grin.Superman frankly
should have known better.

“Just a reminder that I
have Jason Blood on speed dial,” I told Bruce as soon as we’d got rid of
Superman.

“Don’t ever say that
again,” he growled.

So that was that.I was shut out again.It was
‘We’ while Superman was present, we were a team, but as soon as he whooshed
on home, I was back on the watch list.

“It was just a joke, Bruce.Trying to lighten the mood a little.”

“Don’t.”

I conjured one final image of
a magical catglove with claws that could slice into otherwise invulnerable
Kryptonian flesh and give a certain chiseled cheek the smack it so richly
deserved…He had no idea of the
harm he’d done.“I work more
with Superman because of the man.I
trust him.I trust his judgment and
his ethics and his decency.”And
Trust does not come easily to Bruce…

“So what happens now?” I
asked.

“Now we ensure that the
guilty are punished and the League never resorts to these kinds of tactics
again.”

To be continued…

Author’s Note: Special Thanks to MyklarCure for ongoing help and support. If you haven’t
read JLAin’t, you don’t know the real Justice League.